The Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative (WPDI) and Interpeace call on international actors to step up and make the most important investment we can possibly make to our collective future – today’s young people.
• We live in a time where we have the largest youth generation in human history, with 1.8 billion young people today alive between the ages of 15 to 29.
• Of this 1.8 billion, 90 percent live in developing countries, and almost one in four, or approximately 408 million, are living in settings directly affected by armed conflict or organized violence.
• The international community needs to dramatically step up efforts to generate better data on youth development and support evidence-based youth-led peace and development initiatives. • Through shifting our perceptions of the positive role youth can have on peace and generating better data, it will be possible enable the transformative youth-focused peace and development needed to transform the sources of young people’s exclusion.
GENEVA, Switzerland, Friday 8 March. The Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative (WPDI) and Interpeace today launch a call for the international community to make a transformative change to the way we engage young people in peace and development. We recognize the growing evidence base that shows the empowerment of young people is the key factor to peace in many of the most fragile and conflict-affected settings in the world today.
“Unfortunately, the common framing of young people is disproportionately negative. Too often, they are seen as part of the problem and not enough as part of the solutions” says Forest Whitaker, CEO and Founder of the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative. “Yet you will find that in conflict and violence-affected areas, and other places, there are many young people working collectively and independently for peace and sustainable development.”
Until recently, the role of youth leadership, agency, and voice in building peace has remained largely unrecognized and unacknowledged. This is changing through the UN’s recent groundbreaking resolution 2250 on Youth Peace and Security, where the UN Security Council expressed a significant normative shift in highlighting the positive and critical role young people can play in ending conflicts and fostering peace.
Now, a strong commitment from the international community is required to invest in the capacities and agency of young women and men. “Young people want to be heard, they want to be part of the decisions that affect them, their communities, and their countries – they have an immense ambition for action that we must put to the service of peace. We must go beyond the current ad-hoc efforts and achieve the catalytic scale to make real, transformative change happen” added Scott Weber, President of the international organization for peacebuilding Interpeace.
This shift is critical especially across Sub-Saharan Africa where not only is 71% of the population under the age of 29 but also where many of the world’s most intense conflicts exist alongside chronic underinvestment in the future of young people. By realizing a collective shift in how we perceive young people and then investing in them and their agency it will be possible to build long-term sustainable peace.
For more information:
• Caroline Descombris, Executive Director WPDI – caroline@wpdi.org +1(323)317-0969
• Alexandre Munafò, Head of Strategic Partnerships & Communications Interpeace – munafo@interpeace.org +41 79 272 73 22.
About Interpeace, International Organization for Peacebuilding
Interpeace is the International Organization for Peacebuilding established in 1994 by the United Nations to develop innovative solutions to build peace. Interpeace has operated programs in Latin America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia and currently supports more than 21 locally led peacebuilding initiatives around the world. Web: www.interpeace.org